My story has two parts, and starts out
with my first marriage several years ago. I was young, and pregnant (not
all that big yet mind you), and really naive about military life. I had
been befriended by the Major's wife, and she had invited me to some sort
of Tupperware/makeup/home decor sort of party. Being that I didn't really
know any of the other wives in my husband's company, I thought it would be
a good idea for me to go.

I got an invite about a week before the
event, complete with directions, and a request for an RSVP. I called to
thank the Major's wife for sending the invitation, and told her that I
would be there.

Her house was roughly a 1/2 hour drive
from mine, and I was NOT familiar with officers housing at all. I left
with plenty of time to find the place. I arrived 10 minutes early (much to
my own surprise) and went up to the door and rang the bell. It took what
seemed like eons for the door to open, and when it did, the 1st
Lieutenant's wife (her husband is two ranks under the Major's wife, for
those that don't know the ranking system of the army) answered the door.
She said "WHO are you?" (imagine snotty tone) I smiled and
answered "I'm Specialist Smith's wife, Sue. Nice to meet you."
It was met with a "Hummph....WELL. THIS party is for OFFICERS' wives
ONLY. I don't know WHO sent you the invite or WHY. Leave or I'm calling
the MP's (military police)" and promptly shut the door in my face.

I was hurt and ashamed. I went home in
tears. I had called the Major's wife to confirm the invite, and she had
said "Great!!! I'm looking forward to having you!" I had been
home for about 4 hours, when I got the call from the Major's wife, asking
if I had gotten lost. She said that she missed me at the party as there
had been other wives there that she wanted to introduce me to, and give me
a "formal welcome to the company". I told her that I had gotten
there 10 minutes early, but was asked to leave (I made no mention of the
snotty tone, or the fact that the MP's had been threatened on me). She
said "Oh, it must have been Lieutenant Jones' wife that answered the
door." She made no attempt of an apology for the behavior that I had
encountered, but did go on to say that "Most enlisted wives don't get
invited to officers houses very often, you should feel lucky that you even
got invited."

Several months later, I was invited to a
"social" at the Captain's house, at the request of his wife. I
politely declined with the pretense that I had been invited to my
grandmother's house for the weekend (not entirely untrue due to the fact
that grandma says I can visit her any time that I wish). She said
"Oh, it must be that 'incident' at the Major's house. Its ok, we
really didn't want you to show up anyway." Needless to say, I did not
attend any functions where I had been invited by an officer's wife.

Second part of my story happened not too
long ago. I have since gotten remarried (less than a year ago, after a 6
year gap between marriages) and much to my surprise (and everyone else's)
I married back into army life. My current husband is in a different
company altogether, and I thought that this time, things would be
different. I thought wrong.

My husband was deployed for a training
mission that was supposed to last roughly 35 days. Because of the war, he
was detained for an extra two months, and came home 85 days after he left.
While he was gone, I had no contact with the "wives' chain of
concern" nor had I been contacted by the Family Readiness Group (FRG).
I didn't know that I was supposed to be contacted by either.

The day before my husband was due to
come home (I had a little bit of advance warning, my husband called me and
said we will be home "sometime within this time frame") I got a
call from another wife in the group. She was extremely pleasant, and told
me when to be up at the company to be reunited with my husband. We talked
for an hour, and during that time, she asked me how many times FRG had
called to help me or to check up on me. I told her "none, I didn't
know they were supposed to" she said, "oh, so you didn't go to
the meetings?" I told her I didn't even know that there *had* been
meetings. I didn't really get bent out of shape, they probably didn't have
my new phone number (we had recently moved to post). She said she was
looking forward to meeting me in person the next day, and bid farewell.

About two hours later, I got another
phone call. This time from the Command Sergeant Major's (highest ranking
enlisted soldier) wife. We will call her "Susan". I answered the
phone and she seemed really snotty, which I chalked up to her being busy.
"Mrs. A, this is Susan, the CSM's wife. I wanted to let you know that
the guys will be in around 6:30 in the morning, and you HAVE to be there
at 5:00 WITH some sort of dessert so they have something to munch on while
they get their gear." I said thank you, and asked why there was such
a time difference in what she had to say and what I had been told two
hours earlier...was there some sort of change in plans?? "NO!!"
she screamed, "Who else has been calling you!?!?!?!" Seeing
where this was going, I told her that "it was just another wife"
and she DEMANDED to have the name of the person that had already called
me. I Politely told her that I wasn't going to name names if she was going
to get yelled at for calling me. It was met with a rant. Something along
the lines of "WHO is your point of contact and WHY didn't THEY call
you!?!?! I can't believe this, she had no right to call you!!! Why weren't
you at any of the FRG meetings?!?!" At which time I told her that I
had not been told who my point of contact was and I had no idea why they
didn't call me. I asked her if it was wrong for one of my friends to call
me and let me know when they were coming in, and informed her that I
didn't go to the FRG meetings because no one had told me when and where
they were going to be. I got screamed at again, this time for not
"being more involved" with the unit, to which I countered that I
had not been invited to anything, and didn't think it was polite to crash
parties. Then she got REALLY snotty with me and told me that no one had
offered to bring chocolate chip cookies for the guys and that was what I
HAD to bring. I had had just about enough. I thanked her for her time, did
not commit myself to making cookies, and hung up.

I don't understand how someone can be
that rude to another person that they have never met....but I did find out
later that it was SUSAN's job to make the calls about the FRG meetings. I
was upset at this because of the tirade that I got from her about not
going. Since then, Susan had decided that she wants to throw me a baby
shower....and I'm trying really hard to find a polite way of getting out
of it, being that I already have one child, and am not too fond of going
to showers of any type (I have plenty of etiquette hell stories on those
too...Keep your eyes peeled.).

Plain Tacky 0804-03

First, let me say how entertaining and
informative your website is. Some of your readers may wonder if the more
outrageous stories are true but I sure don't. I know how amazingly rude
people can be, because the following story is absolutely true.

Several years ago my brother was
hospitalized for several weeks with a serious illness. His condition was
so grave he was on a respirator for a time. My entire family flew to the
city where he lived to be with him, staying in a nearby hotel and spending
our days at the hospital. Because all his siblings have jobs and families
and live far away, and because our parents are both still employed and
live far away as well, we couldn't all stay with him the entire time, but
took turns flying in and out and being with him. Of course, his own wife
lived in the same town, in the same house, which my brother owned (he
bought it before their marriage). But my horrible sister-in-law only came
to see my brother, her husband, in the hospital ONCE, on the day he was
admitted. She then declared, through her tears, that it was "just too
difficult to see him like this" and disappeared! He was in the
hospital literally for months, and she was MIA. We called and asked her to
come, but she refused. Then my parents when over to their house (my
brother's house) to demand that she go see him, but she refused to their
faces. They also noticed that the house was filthy and the living room
full of overflowing ashtrays and empty beer cans.

Once it was clear Brother was getting
better, my parents (who were with him at the time) had to go home. Another
brother was flying in a couple days later, but Ill Brother recovered so
quickly (once he was recovering) that he ended up being discharged on a
day when no family was in town. So he called his wife for a ride home. She
said she was going to lunch with some friends, but she'd be by to pick him
up when they got done, and he should just wait in the lobby of the
hospital! Weak and exhausted, he then called a taxi to take him home. When
he arrived, he found the house filthy just as my parents had seen, but
also found that in his absence SHE HAD MOVED ANOTHER MAN INTO HIS HOUSE!
Shaving stuff in the bathroom, clothes in the closet and on the floor in
the master bedroom, the whole nine yards. Not surprisingly, shortly
thereafter Brother got a divorce. This made his physical recovery more
difficult because, no matter how richly deserved, a divorce is almost
always a painful process. Throughout the divorce proceedings, my ex-SIL
kept calling him and telling him how much she loved him and how sorry she
was, but some things you just can't forgive. Brother is now married to a
wonderful woman who is amazed at how awful his first wife was.

Plain Tacky 0916-03

My boyfriend and I were at a very nice,
upscale restaurant for our anniversary. By upscale, I mean dresses or
pantsuits for the women, suits for all the men. I suddenly notice a family
being seated in a booth across the way. It was the end of fall and
temperatures in Toronto at that time are quite chilly. The mother and two
children were dressed in shorts and t-shirts, the father in overalls.
Okay, I'm thinking tourists, fine. But then I see the mother kicking off
her shoes...then the rest of the family. Not one of them was wearing any
socks. I'm at a really nice restaurant, I don't need to see other people's
feet while I'm trying to eat. That isn't the worst part. The mother then
proceeds to put her foot up on the bench and clean out her toenails with
her thumbnail. She then flicks whatever she finds onto the carpet. Can you
say "Eeeeewwww?" I finally pointed the family out to our
waitress who watches for a minute and was grossed out herself. She was
mortified and had the manager go and tell them that removing their shoes
was a health violation for the restaurant. The woman got all huffy but her
husband made her and the rest of them comply. The manager was so nice, he
came over and apologized profusely to us and offered us a free dessert but
my appetite was totally spoiled.
Plain Tacky 0901-03

Early into the relationship with my
future wife (we'll call her, "Mary"), we were invited to a
birthday party being held by a friend of mine ("Jane"). Jane had
a sister ("Amy") who I was also friends with, and Amy in turn
invited her own boyfriend ("Mike") to go to the party. We were
told to meet at the restaurant at 6.30pm sharp as reservations had been
made and it was a large party (15-20 people) given the restaurant's size.

When Mary and I got to the restaurant at
around 6.15, the only people I recognized were Amy and Mike. There was no
sign of either Jane or any of the other guests that had been invited. In
addition, we discovered the restaurant had a very exotic menu, and being
meat-and-potatoes people, neither Mary nor myself were particularly
thrilled with the options we were going to have to work with. All that
being said, we were early, and since this was Jane's birthday, we would
manage with the menu the best we could. The four of us (me, Mary, Amy, and
Mike) decided to wait for everybody else by the restaurant's bar. Little
did we know nobody else would show up for the next two hours.

By around 8.15, Jane finally appeared.
She told was she was planning to be on time, but on the way to the
restaurant, she got dirt on the outfit she was going to wear and had to go
home and change. I didn't buy the story for a second as Jane lived less
than 30 minutes away from the restaurant, but again, I reminded myself
that it was Jane's birthday and to let it slide. Mike curtly informed Jane
that we lost the reservation and that nobody else had shown up. Jane
replied that some of her friends (i.e., everybody else) told her earlier
they weren't going to be able to make it to the restaurant until 8.30
earliest. At this point, Mike and I nearly lost it, but Amy quickly
suggested we wait until the other people showed up and then find somewhere
else to eat. Since it was almost 8.30, I told Jane I would agree as long
as we went to a restaurant with a less exotic cuisine.

By 9.30 nobody else turned up. Mike
looked like he was going to explode, Amy was embarrassed by the whole
situation, Mary was clearly irritated, and I though this was the end of my
brief relationship with Mary. Jane on the other hand, was completely
ambivalent to the situation and periodically made calls on the
restaurant's house phone. Finally, she got off the phone and announced the
party had been moved to a different restaurant. The icing on the cake was
the new restaurant Jane picked out had the exact same cuisine as the one
we were currently standing in!

As we left the restaurant, Mike and I
snapped at the exact same time. We told her it was unfair for her to not
tell us the original time had changed, and considering we were the only
people to show up, not take into account our request for a different
cuisine choice at the next restaurant. Jane ignored us, hailed a cab, got
in, and said "Are you coming?" I kissed her on the cheek
goodnight and that was the last time I ever spoke with Jane.

Much to my amazement, my relationship
with Mary survived the night.

Plain Tacky 1215-03

This story is about The Moving Day From
Hell. There was a point in my younger days when moving day meant friends
and a U-Haul truck. The unspoken rules were simple: friends pitched in,
assuming a lot of heavy lifting and letting the "host" know
ahead of time whether they were available to load, unload or for the full
day. In return, the host was expected to be packed and ready (a little bit
of last minute cleaning and packing was okay) and have cold drinks on
hand. At the end of the move, the host provided food, usually in the form
of pizza and beer, for whoever was still around.

Soon after my husband and I were
married, a good friend of ours was moving from the large city we all lived
in out to the suburbs. She asked around for help and my husband and I, our
friend "Andy" and another guy, "Tom", all agreed. Now,
"Alice" was renting the lower level of a group house. She had a
large room that functioned as both her bedroom and as her home office
where she ran a business as a graphic designer. I should point out here
that Alice is a nice, fun person but rather flaky: the type that plans
wonderful, creative parties but forgets about the practical details. So I
guess we really should have expected what followed.

The day of her move was in August and
proved to be the worst sort of weather but typical for our city: extremely
hot (about 100 degrees) and extremely humid. My husband and I picked Andy
up and were met at the door by Andy, laughing and shaking his head,
telling us that Alice had called a few minutes ago and requested that we
bring cold drinks, cups, etc. with us. Apparently she didn't think of this
until the last minute and figured we could just take care of it. We
stopped at a store, bought what we thought we'd need, and headed over to
her house.

Of course, this made us about a 1/2 hour
later than we'd planned. We arrived at her house to find that her
housemates had all moved out already and, as the last one to go, Alice
said it was her responsibility to run around spackling nail holes, taking
down all curtains and blinds, etc. Apparently her housemates hadn't
bothered to do any of this, even in their own rooms. Alice told us she and
Tom were going to do this task and asked us to go down to her room to work
on her stuff. We got down there and discovered that nothing had been
packed. NOTHING. Her bed was still made up. Clothes on the floor, books on
shelves, etc. Her home office area, all her art supplies, everything was
still set up for work, computer still plugged in.

I ran back upstairs and insisted Alice
come down and tell us what she wanted done. She came down with me but
basically kept trying to shrug us off, telling us to "just put
everything in boxes" like this was no big deal. Then she ran back
upstairs to work with Tom. Andy, my husband and I were so disgusted. We
started out trying to pack neatly but of course this was taking forever,
it was hot and uncomfortable (no air conditioning) and we were feeling
really aggravated about having to spend extra hours doing this stuff.
Pretty soon we were just throwing things in boxes without worrying about
labeling or order. It took forever. The only refreshments were the drinks
we had brought. We never saw Alice or Tom the entire time (I have no idea
why it took the two of them all day to spackle nail holes). Finally we
finished and got everything into the U-Haul Alice had hired (Andy had to
run out in the middle of packing to pick it up) as well as our cars since
it didn't all fit in the truck. We got everything over to her new place
and unloaded as quickly as we could.

At this point, it was getting on toward
evening, still hot and muggy and we were getting pretty cranky. We had
just spent eight solid hours helping Alice move. I think Alice was
starting to sense that we were upset but I swear to this day she still
doesn't understand why. When we finally finished she did say thanks and
ordered Chinese delivery but it had been such a long tiring day at that
point, we just wanted to go home and collapse.

Plain Tacky 1028-03

A couple we knew --- he more than she,
and neither of them well --- sent out
preprinted postcards. They had computer-generated labels on them, and we know people from California
to Maine who received them, so the database
must've been large.

I've altered the actual place names, but
the rest of the verbiage is just
as it was printed. I later found out that the announcement was the brainchild of the wife. Here goes:

We are pleased to announce that on
July 1, 1994, we
will be moving into our new 9,500 square foot house in
the exclusive gated community of Devonshire Estates. Our new address will be 111
Impressedyet Ln., Werich, New York.

Gales of laughter could be heard from
sea to shining sea when these little
numbers started showing up in people's mailboxes. The
couple separated within a year of the announcement, and as might be expected, the property battle was
fierce.

Plain Tacky 0807-03

I'm not sure which category this should
go under, but here it is anyway. In college, I used to babysit for a
family with 3 kids. The three boys were fine, but their parents were
something else! We'll call them Tom and Kris. Well, one weekend Kris goes
out of town for a friend's bachelorette party in Las Vegas and asks me to
watch her kids that Friday night because Tom wanted a night out with the
guys.

Tom is a younger guy, in his early 30's
I guess. He met up with 3 of his buddies around 6:00 p.m. to catch dinner,
and then head to the bars for a few hours. So I put the kids to bed at
their normal time, around 10, and park on the couch to watch TV until he
makes it home. He then calls me at 2am to tell me he is too drunk to drive
home that night, which he obviously is, by the way he is slurring his
words, outrageously flirting with me on the phone, telling me I'm his new
best friend. He gets a conspiratorial voice, saying, now we're not going
to tell Kris, right? C'mon, you're the best, etc. etc. I try to be as
easygoing on the phone as I can, because I do not want him to get in the
car and try to drive home. I'm also not too sure I want to be
"alone" in a house with him and possibly some of his drunk
friends in the middle of the night! So as I'm trying to fall asleep on the
couch, after many minutes of calming the drunk, I get another phone call.
It was not Tom, but someone who knew my name and where I was. His friends
were passing around the cell phone with the house number on it, making
"inappropriate suggestions", asking if I was lonely ... you get
the idea. Now I was starting to get scared! Well, you can just imagine the
scenario, and this went on for another hour until they got tired of the
game. Terrified, I tried to sleep.

Well, at 7 am when Tom gets home, still
drunk, he apparently decides that I shouldn't get paid my entire hourly
rate, since I was sleeping for some of the time! I'm generally pretty
passive, but after all I had been through, I let him know subtly that this
would not be appropriate, I actually expected a bonus or something! He
grudgingly gave me a little more money, and started wheedling me about my
promise of secrecy from his wife. I didn't care, I just wanted to get out
of there, and never see him again. Well, the funny thing was, when Kris
called me next weekend to babysit (I swear, it was the very next
weekend!), she told me Tom would be out of town, and she needed me because
she wanted to go out with her girlfriends! I agreed since they paid me
well, and he would not be there. When I got there, she was dressed like
... what's a PC word for it? ... well, she looked like she wanted to
"get some" that night. So did her married best friend. When they
came home drunk at 3am, 2 hours after the promised time, with excuses of
construction and traffic delays (at 3am???) I just had to laugh. It is so
sad that the two of them thought they could have a "marriage"
based on sneaking around and trying to act like 21-year-olds, when they
are both in their 30s with 3 kids! I guess they were made for each
other.

Plain Tacky 0807-03

I'm not sure which section this would go
into, but I just had to submit this. About 8 months ago, I was in a
shopping mall when I saw someone who trains in my class looking highly
distressed. Her husband had hit her and she'd lost something quite
valuable and she was so upset that I stayed to talk to her and to help her
look. As such, I nearly missed my own wedding proposal (I knew it was
coming and landed up being late because I couldn't just leave her there -
thankfully, my fiancé is a very understanding man).

So for the next few months, I spent a
lot of time with her, counseling and listening. She is a housewife and
married to a man who earns a large sum of money, but she doesn't spend
much time with him and comes from an abusive background (as do I), so I
tried to help wherever I could.. My fiancé is a student, I am a
secretary, studying part time, and we are not well off. This becomes
important later.

Whenever she was bored, she would call
me up and I had to drop everything to go entertain her, she demanded a lot
of my time and I gave it, gladly. After all, that's what friends do. We
didn't go out often, as I couldn't afford it, but I would often buy lunch
or something, and she did the same.

Then, about three months ago, I was in
the middle of moving house - I'd taken 2 days off work and was desperately
trying to get sorted in that time. She had a really bad headache and
needed to go to her doctor - her doctor was about 35km's away, but he was
the only one she trusted. She had apparently called everyone she knew and
now she wanted to know if I could give her a lift.

My car wasn't running very well at the
time, the front car seat had just broken and, because of a paint job, it
had to go through roadworthy again, so I wasn't allowed to drive it on the
road. Knowing that we would be taking many highways, I asked if I could
take her in her car. She agreed.

I got to her house, and we headed to the
doctor. After the doctor, she wanted to go cancel an appointment and asked
if I could take her there. I did. Then she needed to stop to look at light
fittings...so I took her there. I had a lunch appointment with my fiancé,
but called to let him know I was going to be late. He understood.

Later, I found out that she was telling
everyone how selfish and greedy I was because I *insisted* on using her
car. She then also phoned my fiancé and lambasted him for everything that
we had ever done - from bringing *cheap* stuff when we came over to her
house for dinner - we usually brought drinks, something for a starter and
flowers, and cooked the meal, and went on about what a demanding friend
*I* was.

I was completely flabbergasted and will
not waste my time with her again!

Plain Tacky 1219-03

Working in food service allows me to
hone my customer service skills in hopes that it might help me in a future
career someday. As a college student, I work in a food kiosk in one of my
university's many food courts. I have seen my share of bad customers but
this one really takes the cake.

It was about one hour to closing time when a customer came into our food
kiosk, chatting away on her cellular phone. I had a hard time trying to
get her order because she was too busy blabbing away on her cell.

She finally placed an order and as I was ringing her up on the register,
she called, of all people, HER MOTHER and started a conversation with her.
I reminded her that next time she comes in to order, she should finish her
phone conversation. She smiled and was polite about it but I still will
not forget seeing this airhead come in, expecting to be served while she
was mindlessly carrying on a conversation that could've waited until after
she played her order.

Plain Tacky 0826-03

I was behind a lady in line at a
bookstore. She had a large stack of books, and was using a gift card. Now,
some people think gift certificates are tacky in and of themselves, but I
think it’s fun to be able to pick something you wouldn’t otherwise
buy, and the gift you select for yourself still gives you happy thoughts
of the giver.

The clerk rang up the purchases and said
"That’ll be $195.04." The customer handed over her gift card
"Oh, $200, that’s nice," said the clerk. She swiped the card
and said "And your remaining total is $190.88."
"WHAT?" cried the customer "I had a $200 gift card…"
She figured out that her aunt had given her a USED gift card, with less
than $5 left on it. I HOPE that the aunt just accidentally gave her niece
a card she’d already had, instead of the one she’d bought especially
for the niece, but I doubt it. It’s not just the amount of the gift, it’s
the fact that she had to leave all her books and apologize to the clerk
(who was very sympathetic). What an embarrassing position to be in!

Plain Tacky 0911-03

I don't know if this story will pale in
comparison to some of the others you have received or even make it on to
the Ehell site(excellent by the way), but it happened to me not so long
ago and I was disgusted.

My high school ball was around three
months away, and I was excited about all the planning that was going into
it and had arranged for my dress, hair, makeup and particularly partner.
Now for the guts of it.

I was at a movie when I ran into an old
acquaintance. This girl I had not seen for some time, and in most of our
previous encounters she had been extremely negative and rude to me. She
greets me politely and then starts a conversation, My gut instinct was
'What does she want?' since her previous behavior had been less than
friendly to me. Well pretty soon she asks about the ball. It turns out one
of my other girlfriends is taking her, since she left our school last
year. Then she asks if I could possible take HER fiancé as MY partner, so
she could be with him! (The implication being that I would obviously not
have a partner!) I politely declined, taking some pleasure in the fact
that I could say I already had a partner, but without, I feel, being rude
or tactless in any way.

Fast forward to the ball....

She starts flirting with my partner
(whom fortunately I did not have in interest in) and ends up close dancing
with him for the last song!

I resisted asking after her fiancé. I'm
not sure if my partner knew she was engaged or not.